


a place among gods

by tinysmallest



Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: Gen, Ink Monster Bendy (Bendy and the Ink Machine), POV Bendy (Bendy and the Ink Machine), Sort Of, a 'henry breaks the loop' story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-25
Updated: 2019-04-25
Packaged: 2020-01-31 13:21:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18592081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinysmallest/pseuds/tinysmallest
Summary: The last reel has been placed yet again, but this time, something different happens. Now the gods are fighting, and the Ink Demon is alone with his thoughts until one of them emerges victorious and returns for him.He wonders what will happen then.





	a place among gods

The world around him bellowed and roared. He didn’t dare move from his spot on the floor, although his mind was trying very hard to crawl out of his body anyway. As reality shifted and screamed around him, he laid there, sliding back, back, back, away and away.

What Henry had done he couldn’t begin to imagine, but the gods were fighting, and he had no place in a fight among deities.

Even if he did, he was in no condition to fight. The giant beast his body so painfully morphed into time and time again was gone, melted away rather than burned away, but gone nonetheless. He wasn't sure how or why. Perhaps if he were less bone weary he would be alarmed at how tiny he felt now. His body didn't feel at all like it should.

In some ways that was a relief, though. The constant agony in his ribs and leg was gone. At first he wondered if he'd grown so used to it that it finally ceased to hurt all together, but no... that didn't sound possible.

He didn't know how long he had existed like this, if measuring how long was something even possible, but he knew it had been a long, long time. If the pain hadn't gone completely away in all that time, however used to it he was, he doubted it would vanish the rest of the way out of nowhere.

The gods raged, and, unable to move, he waited. There was nothing but that, and wasn't that always the case? A faint squeeze of fear gripped his chest. If Joey lost, he was going to be so furious. If Joey _won_ he was going to be so furious.

He knew little beyond concepts Joey had introduced him to, wittingly or not, but anger, punishment, vengeance, pain, pride... those were things he knew very well. 

Not that things would probably be different if Henry won. Henry, that most determined of gods. Henry, the true creator. Henry, who took all Joey threw at him and stubbornly refused to give up, even when Joey puppeted his movements. Whose eyes shone with a light beyond his comprehension.

Who had every reason to hate him.

After all, he was the instrument through which Joey caused Henry so much suffering. Why shouldn't Henry bash his brains out at the first available opportunity? There was nothing inside of him; an empty creature, existing only for its strings to be pulled on. If he were meant to be anything more, than Joey would have created him as such instead of chaining him to that throne.

The throne. It lay somewhere behind him, along with the screens. A deep burning in his gut pierced the haze of apathy and exhaustion. Those _screens._

It felt like he’d spent an eternity staring at him. Trying to absorb them. Unsure of what they were supposed to mean, but acutely aware he was supposed to be like that and... wasn’t. He wasn’t small and cute and mischievous. He was tall and lanky and drippy. _Hideous,_ he remembered Joey snorting, and at being unleashed upon the studio, he found that Joey wasn’t just being cranky. The funny, shorter ink creatures ran from him, cried at the sight of him. 

He wanted to be like what Joey showed him on those screens. He _wanted_ it. Maybe if he was like that, Joey would be happier. Nicer. Maybe, if he wanted it bad enough, it would happen. It was a thought, once, but that dream died long ago.

He twitched a finger and blinked, drawing his hand sluggishly into his vision. This was the especially wrong hand, the human-ish one-- or at least, it should have been. A large, cartoon glove sat in his blurry vision, twitched when he moved his hand. And as he stared at it, he became aware of the rest of his body-- the straight legs, the fact that he had eyes that could see, the lack of dripping.

... Well, now he knew why he felt wrong. 

Once he would have wept with joy, but now he felt nothing. What did it matter? Changing his shell didn’t change what he was. It didn’t change that he was just a thing to be used. It didn’t change that he wasn’t Bendy. Maybe he was dying? Or seeing things that weren’t there. But he’d died before and it never felt like this. That hurt. This didn’t.

What happened now? It was a thought wondered idly, but suddenly he became aware that the walls had stilled, the world quiet. The battle of the gods was over. Looks like he’d find out shortly.

Not that it probably meant anything. Either Joey was going to come in here and do... who-knew-what. This whole thing wasn’t planned. Joey would probably force him back into his old body, maybe set up the story pieces again. If he was especially unlucky, well-

It wasn’t like he was a stranger to agony, and maybe he would shut down while Joey took his fury out. That would be nice, to not be there while Joey punished him for failure. It had happened sometimes, but not every time, and maybe he’d get just a little bit lucky even in the unluckiest of scenarios.

If it was _Henry_ who walked in, well...

He _really_ had no idea how that would go. Henry looked at him with fear, and once in a blue moon, with hatred, but somewhere along the line, somewhere in all the turns, that look had changed to ones he had no frame of reference for. He just knew it made Henry’s eyes sad. What that could mean was anyone’s guess.

Footsteps. Far away, but he could hear them now. Though exhaustion still smothered him, fear was beginning to puncture the apathy, making his stomach cramp. With each _tmp tmp tmp_ another jolt ran through him.

It was easy to slide into numbness when the pain to come wasn’t there yet, but quite another when it was finally hanging over your head and ready to drop.

Louder, louder, louder, _here._

He barely dared breathe when he stepped into the room, but his eyes lifted, just a touch. Shorter stature. Little bit stockier. Old and graying and absolutely covered in ink. Henry. He stood in the doorway, staring at him, and slowly, the tiny form on the ground dragged his limbs into obeying him, pushing up. His legs remained crumpled beneath him as he sat, arms supporting himself, head up just enough to eye Henry in flickering glances as the man finally began to approach.

The Creator who’d triumphed, and now he was here to... finish things, probably. Years ago he’d helped dream an entire world into existence and now he was staring at a twisted perversion of a key component of that world, an empty shell wearing the cutesy face of a creation he had loved, had poured his everything into.

He had to imagine that plus all the nonsense Henry had been put through would not put the Creator in a great mood, and Henry had a right to feel that way. Henry deserved to wipe his existence away, like an accidental inksplot. But even despite all the endless begging for death, with it now walking towards him, he found himself afraid of whatever lay on the other side of the veil for something like him.

Of course, what might be even worse was what Henry would decide to do if he kept him alive. And, with the worst jolt yet, he had to realize: why wouldn’t he? Sure, he could be mad enough to want to just erase him, but why do that if he was so helpless now? Joey didn’t do things quickly when he was angry; why would Henry?

The despair flooded his chest. Oh no, no, no. Not that. Anything but that. He looked up again at Henry, trying to speak with his eyes, his wildly thudding heart pounding more painfully with each step, and reached near-palpitation levels when Henry stopped in front of him and then crouched.

_I'll be your toy, your doll, your puppet. I'll be anything you want me to._

He knew what would happen if he wasn't. Oh, did he know.

Or he thought he knew, anyway, because suddenly there was a warm palm against his cheek, cupping that half of his face, and the world froze. Nothing moved. He closed his eyes against that warmth, feeling everything around him drop away to nothing.

And then suddenly the hand left his face and just as suddenly his underarms were grasped and he was lifted. Before there was time to panic, the warmth against his face was back, and this time it was everywhere, and he opened his eyes to find his cheek pressed against a chest.

He didn't dare move, didn't dare disturb this moment. It was so warm. So warm! He trembled as he grasped at it, at this warmth and light, struggling to comprehend what was happening. _Is this heaven,_ he wondered for a brief moment, and discarded the idea just as quickly. No, it could not be heaven. He was a demon, after all.

Oh, but it felt like heaven to him. It may as well be. It certainly didn’t feel like reality, that was for sure. And he wasn’t in his right mind, either-- he had no idea what he was feeling, but the tears streaming down his cheeks sure didn’t feel like they should be there.

For a few brief moments all was still. When he finally pulled his face back a little to look up, the warm brown eyes that looked down at him, so tender and kind that he couldn't help but stare in awe, crinkled at the edges.

Henry was smiling.

"Let's go home, buddy."

Home. Home. Another word he didn't know, didn't understand. Had no frame of reference for. But that was fine. _Henry_ was a word he did understand, _Henry_ felt the way those teeny little beams of light on the first floor felt, but brighter, more intense.

Whatever home was, if Henry was part of it, he would be fine.

He nodded, and, cradled there against Henry's chest, his eyes slipped shut.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote most of this (the ending) at like three in the morning and spent like three hours today trying to join the ending with the beginning and hopefully that doesn't show as badly as I fear it does. Writing, why are you such a bitch.


End file.
